African nations renew their promise to reduce child mortality

African health ministers and experts are meeting in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa to renew their promise to reduce child mortality rates across the continent. Official data shows preventable diseases kill nine-thousand African children every day.

In 2012, India, Ethiopia and the US in cooperation with the United Nations Children’s fund launched a global roadmap to lower their national rates of child mortality to 20 or less per 1000 births by 2035.
The initiative was adopted by 160 countries globally.
African states are now renewing their promise they made to African children and mothers in Addis Ababa Ethiopia, where a continental health meeting is being held under the theme “The African Leadership for child Survival- A promise renewed.”
According to UNICEF reports the top 20 countries with high child mortality rates in the world are all Africa states, among them Nigeria and Democratic Republic of Congo.
However, there are some success stories that will be introduced to the Africa states during the health forum. These include the host country Ethiopia that has mobilized 3 million women in five groups, to learn basic health practices in order to pass their experience to their fellow women. Based on such a system, Ethiopia managed to reduce child mortality rate by 60 percent from 1990 to 2011.
As the African health ministers and experts decide on how the continent should further reduce the child mortality rates fron 39%, the biggest challenge lies within their governments, as they are responsible to allocate resources and implement related decisions.
The African Union launched a monitoring and evaluation framework for children in 20-12. Based on the plan, African member states were expected to provide the data that would be used to design necessary policies to save the African children. BUT the face that only 14 out of the 54 states heeded the call, raises concerns over the extents the African countries will support the new initiative.